News – Page 4 – Retro Bazaar

More Fun at the Fringe

We are happy to be returning Edinburgh Fringe this year with Judy’s Vintage Fair .

Being held over the first weekend of the festival – 6th & 7th August – in the the uber cool ‘Out of the Blue & Drill Hall‘, the fair is a great way to start the festival with a bang. The Drill Hall in Dalmeny Street was built as a military drill hall in 1901 and between 2003 and 2010 was redeveloped to become the vibrant arts centre it is today. It also has a great cafe serving home-made fare using fair trade & organic produce.

Along with us there will be over 30 amazing stalls featuring vintage clothes, jewellery, homewares, furniture, lighting, record players and vinyl from 1920s to the 1980s! Should be a weekend packed with retro & vintage treasure.

The fair will be open 11am – 4pm, Saturday & Sunday. See our events page for all details on the fair.

Check out the Fringe site to book shows after you have finished all your essential retro shopping!

Vintage on the Dock

One week to go until ‘Vintage on the Dock’, the Vintage Festival being held for the second year at Liverpool’s Albert Dock. This celebration of family friendly 20^th century cool, takes place on the 9^th & 10^th July and offers the vintage visitor and array of delights including:

The Vintage Marketplace
Classic Car Show
Vintage DJs
Vintage Workshops
Best Dressed Competition
Street Theatre & Performance
Mobile Hair Salon
Dance Lessons

We will be in The Vintage Marketplace, selling our wares including record players, speakers, phones and homewares; there will also be lots more from other traders including ladies fashion & menswear, vintage jewellery, mid century modern homewares, records, music memorabilia and up-cycled ephemera. Bring cash! You’re gonna need it…but don’t panic we take credit cards so you can shop till you drop; plus we will look after your purchases until the marketplace closes to save you carrying them around.

The dock, which celebrates Liverpool’s maritime past, will not only host the festival but has a variety of permanent attractions including the Maritime museum, Beatles Story & the Tate Gallery

So come to the Dock for a fab weekend, the fun starts at 11am both days and the weather is looking pretty good too!

Find all the details on our events page , Vintage Festival or Dotty’s Vintage Facebook

Bigger Van, More Stock!

We have taken delivery of our new van, which we have named ‘Boris’ (named before all the shenanigans). He is MUCH bigger than Ruby so we will be able to bring more fab stock to all the shows we are attending; this includes the upcoming Furniture Flea at York Hall, Bethnal Green.

As this is the first and oldest furniture flea, it has a special place in our heart as we have been there from the start. We love this event – its vibrant, fun, full of fabulous vintage, retro and mid-century stock and always madly busy.

We will be bringing a fabulous mixture of our vintage technology – after a quiet few weeks on the show front we have amassed a great selection of newly restored and serviced radiograms, radios, speakers, dial telephones, and some gorgeous lighting, including some amazing Holmegaard pieces.

So see you all there Sunday 3rd July, 10.30 till 4.30.

PS: Needless to say Ruby has not been sent to the great scrapheap in the sky, she has been retired and is looking for a new home – miles of use left in her yet!

A Beaulieu full weekend!

We are looking forward to two days fun trading at beautiful Beaulieu, home of the National Motor Museum and so much more.

We are there the weekend of 18^th & 19^th June in the Vintage Village selling our wares including record players, speakers, phones and homewares; there will also be lots more from other traders including ladies fashion & menswear, vintage jewellery, upcycled furniture, homewares and kitchenalia. Look out for Vintage luggage, maps, records and curiosities.

It will be a full weekend with two car events – the Simply Classics & Sports Car event on Saturday and the Hot Rod & Custom Drive on Sunday. There will be a colourful display of hundreds of hot rods, custom & classic cars, the vintage village, plus live music and entertainment for the whole family to enjoy. Don’t forget Sunday is Fathers day and it a fab way to keep Dad happy!

So come down for a fun weekend, the fun starts at 10am both days and the weather is looking pretty good too!

Find all the details here and on our events page or the Bows & Braces Facebook Event

Roll up Roll up for the Furniture Flea Weekender!

The fabulous South London Furniture Flea is coming to Clapham for a two day vintage extravaganza on Saturday 16^th & Sunday 17^th April. We will be bringing our usual selection of vintage and retro audio, including reworked MP3 compatible speakers, radiograms (all serviced and ready to go) plus genuine vintage portable record players. We’ll also have a host of furniture, lighting and small accessories to adorn your home. So grab yourself a piece of vintage glass, a classic dial telephone or a stylish Starburst Wall Clock.

We’ll have different stock items each day as we will be replenishing over night – Poor Ruby the van can’t hold everything!

We and a couple of other regular traders will be there the whole weekend, also there will be a mix of different traders each day which will give you a chance to look and buy a huge selection of great affordable bits & pieces for your home.

Tickets can be bought in advance for one or both days to save you queuing on the day. Tickets are available here: –

https://www.tickettailor.com/checkout/view-event/id/49504/chk/f636

Pricing:
Early bird entry – £3
General entry – £2
(Kids Go Free)

See full details on the Vintage Furniture Flea Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/events/225878177757648/

Dates for your Diary

So its February already and we are due to start doing events again. We have 3 shows this month in London starting with Alexandr a Palace on 7th Feb. This huge fair at the birthplace of television is a great day out with over 600 traders.

We are back at the South London Vintage Furniture Flea in Clapham on 21st, with Judy’s Affordable Vintage Fairs.This very busy fair had queues around the block at its first visit and is a must for all vintage furniture aficionados looking for a bargain.

We end the month at the fabulous Midcentury Modern Show at Dulwich College. A taste of design heaven for the soul. It is advisable to book in advance and tickets can be bought from the Modern Shows website.

Full address and opening times for all shows are available on our events page.

Collection of Vintage Ladybird Posters

We have recently bought a selection of Ladybird posters, produced in the 1960s & 70s and used to sell children’s wear, not the Ladybird books which we know so well.

The posters are all very vibrant and busy and the ladybirds, in their ‘human’ form, are undertaking lots of tasks. Each poster is themed so we have the Ladybird Olympics, a Ladybird Observatory, a delivery depot and a fun Christmas poster.

The earlier posters from the 1960s are drawn by Robert Lumley a well know illustrator for Ladybird books – who, with Eric Winter, was best known for producing the images for most of the Well Loved Tales, Ladybird books.

The 1970s posters are drawn by Stringer (no first name) and follow the style of Lumley’s earlier work with vivid colours and lots going on around a theme. The later posters, which are unsigned, are very minimalist but do actually mention the Ladybird range of clothes. They continue to use the recognisable black-hatted ladybird, though both have a pale background and are less dense in style.

We can find out very little about these posters, and though they are promoting the Ladybird Children’s wear range, the message is very hidden, except in the later more minimalist posters. There is lots of fun but very little advertising going on!

If anyone out there can shed light on these fab vintage posters we would love to learn more. Meanwhile they are all for sale in our shop, prices are dependant on condition and age.

Click for more information on Robert Lumley

Gorgeous George Needs a New Home!

This is Gorgeous George – my beloved 1972 Beetle (not the talented, recently married actor, Mr Clooney!).

The time has come to find George a new home, as having moved house I have nowhere for George to live in comfort and to the standard he has come to expect. So with heavy heart he’s up for adoption (sale).

As you may have worked out George is no run of the mill man – he is a fabulous rare oak green 1972 1302s Beetle who has been part of the Retro Bazaar family for 5 years now.

George – or to give him his full name – Georgimus Maximus Decimus Meridius – is the ripe old age of 43 and as such has a few bumps and bruises. However in 2011 he had a full restoration. He was stripped down, and loads of bodywork issues were attended to. He got 4 new wings, and lots of welding underneath, suspension bits, and a total respray in Oak Green, which is his original factory colour.

Being a 1302s George is quite a rare model of beetle, only made for a short while before the “Super Beetle” came out. This means George has a flat windscreen, and still looks like a traditional Beetle, but underneath has more modern suspension, disk brakes at the front and a 1600cc engine which means a little more oomph in today’s traffic.

Through all his restoration George has been left as original as possible, the only additions are an electronic ignition on the engine to aid reliability and a 1970s Radio/Tape player which has been modified for MP3 so you can plug in your phone for music. Unfortunately I have not had the time to lavish the time and attention George deserves, and recently he has been a bit neglected. He is a good solid car, with a full MOT, but his paint has started bubbling in a couple of small places, and he looks like he really could do with a hug.

Please contact us now to give gorgeous George a new home, and remember, a Beetle is for life. George has 6 months MOT and qualifies for free tax, so is cheaper to run. Please phone or email for details or checkout the ebay listing

Oh My God – Where Did the Summer go!

Well summer is long gone, Autumn is in full swing and we are nearly back into the thermals! Brrrr !!!

All is calm here at Retro B headquarters gearing up for the next mad round of shows. We are off to Oxford late November and have three visits to London before the end of the year.

We have some fabulous new stock coming to the shows – from the kitsch (a gorgeous glass standard lamp) to the cool (pair of G-Plan butterfly chairs) plus lots lots more. We will also be bringing a selection of our MP3 converted vintage Speakers & radios , in all shapes and sizes which will make ideal Christmas presents. We also have a great selection of bar stock – soda syphons, ice buckets, Babycham, shot & wine glasses so you can enjoy the festivities in vintage style.

We will be selling at the furniture flea in Oxford on 21^st November, which will again take place at the Catholic Chaplaincy. This was a roaring success in June and we are looking forward to going back. Click on the Furniture Flea logo for more info.

This will be followed by Modern Shows main event on 22^nd November at Dulwich College. We will be in our usual place by the stairs in the South Cloister. As the show gets very busy it is best to book your tickets in advance to save queuing and money. Follow the link to book your tickets http://modernshows.com/the-shows/dulwich-nov-2015/

For details of all the shows we are attending before Christmas take a look at our events page https://retro-bazaar.co.uk/events/

JVC Videosphere TV with Freeview!

We currently have this amazing JVC Videosphere TV in stock – fully working and converted to Freeview so you can enjoy 21st century viewing in full black & white!

Designed in 1970 by JVC Japan, this iconic round television was inspired by the moon landing in 1969 and the age of space exploration. The shape is based on an astronaut’s space helmet and this version in white plastic with the smoked acrylic visor epitomises this. The Videosphere was first produced in 1974 and was sold up until the early 1980s.

Obviously with the move to digital television the analogue components in the TV no longer pick up a signal, however as our aim is to make old beautiful technology still usable we have retro fitted a remote control Freeview box. The original tube is still is good order, so all we have done is provided a workable signal. The Freeview box is discreetly hidden in the base of the TV, so aesthetically the TV still looks the as it would have when new, but with the added usefulness of the remote control.

The TV is working and in great vintage condition; it has been rewired, electrically checked and fully PAT tested. The Tuning dial, controls for volume, brightness etc, all operate as they should, the metal hanging/carrying chain is present and correct as is the extendable aerial, which is still in one piece.

Pop to our shop to catch this slice of vintage technology.

Go the V&A or Plastics websites for the full history